


falling into empty space

by Encrypt



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Eventual Fluff, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Season/Series 07, Protective Shiro (Voltron), Requited Love, Romance, Team Bonding, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 17:28:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17026986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Encrypt/pseuds/Encrypt
Summary: Keith turns to look at him slowly, almost lethargic, and Shiro’s almost knocked sideways with how the moonlight falls across his planes of his skin. Keith had always been a wild beauty, but there’s something refined about him now, all liquid grace and felid ease that hadn’t existed before, and every day Shiro finds himself falling head over heels again.“I think there’s something wrong with me,” Keith says, trepidation all in his voice and the way he wraps his arms around one knee to curl tighter.On the planet of Pipra, Keith answers a call, and Shiro finds himself in a desperate fight for Keith's life.Fill for Sheith Prompt Party on Tumblr: “Keith’s connection with quintessence lures him into a dangerous situation”





	falling into empty space

**Author's Note:**

> self-indulgent headcanon about keith and his quintessence sensitivity that i didn't get addressed during canon, so fic happened. hopefully this addresses the prompt!

“To Voltron!”

The people of Pipra explode into a bird-like cacophony, raucous shrilling and deep-throated calls all echoing the salute before a seemingly well-known song booms out through the hollow structure of the tree palace. A wave moves through as a good amount of the crowd make for the dance floor, weaving in and out in intricate patterns of movement.

Everywhere he looks, there’s a bright flash of color from someone’s crest, throat, or tail that draws his attention to sudden movement. Keith inhales, trying to ignore how the bustle of so many bodies keeps his back rigid and his senses wired. _Breathe._

“Keith.” Shiro’s shoulder to shoulder with him, a steady, anchoring presence in the joyous crowd of bird-people. Keith looks up to catch storm-grey eyes, creased at the corners with concern.

Allowing himself this one small luxury, Keith leans against Shiro as much as he can without blatantly draping all over him, deceptively loose-limbed as he draws in another deep breath that sends throbbing pain through bruises along his ribcage.

His shoulders are a bone-deep ache, and his vision is pulsing with fatigue at the edges. But his back is still ramrod straight, and even weary he cuts an imposing figure in a clean dress uniform, perfectly tailored to his slender figure. He is every inch the leader of Voltron.

But there’s no getting past Shiro.

“You should rest.” His right hand casually floats to a rest at Keith’s waist, noting the barest tremor in his slim frame.

“My team is here,” he grits out, before his expression softens in apology. There’s a swell of equal parts exasperation and pride in Shiro’s chest.

He gives Keith an appraising look, eyebrow slightly raised. “It was a tough battle.”

“Shouldn’t have been. I was off my game.” Keith’s look is suddenly distant. “Lance did a better job.”

Somewhere off to the side, Shiro can hear the slight hitch in Lance’s conversation, before he continues regaling his captive audience even louder with their tale of victory.

“ – and that’s when Keith, our mullet-headed leader – “

“What’s a mullet?” chirps up one of the finch-headed aliens, raising a four-taloned hand with feathers like fine scales glistening in the light.

_“That_ ,” Lance gestures impatiently at Keith, who somehow stiffens even more as Lance continues. “Anyways, he leaps into the fray in the middle of all the Empire’s ships in the Black Lion and that’s when I realize…” he pauses for a second, preening at the attention. “We’ve got the perfect distraction.”

_They’re slashing through the air as one when Keith’s hit with a wave of dizziness that almost drags him from his seat._

_“Keith?” Somehow, Hunk’s voice sounds like it’s echoing through a cavern miles away, even though he’s standing next to him in the mindscape of Voltron._

_His head is pounding, Black growling in the back of his mind, but even she sounds faint and distant. There’s a tug in his chest, something that screams of a homesickness he hasn’t known since Shiro’s return._

_“Keith, no!” Pidge’s cry is suddenly shrill and shockingly next to him just as they’re struck._

_They cry out as one before Voltron flies apart, and Keith is tumbling, end over end into the air, hand reaching for the controls and never quite making it._

Come, _it seems to say, thrumming through him with longing._ You are needed.

His voice drops, causing them to lean in closer, beaks clacking in excitement. “They all dive in around him, drawing tractor beam after tractor beam onto the Black Lion, but what they don’t account for is the mighty Atlas and the speed of the Red Lion.”

_“Keith!” Lance’s heart is pounding. Atlas is preoccupied, drawing fire from the leviathan ship as the other four lions scramble._

_“Keith, we’re coming!”_

_“Shiro, we need you!”_

_“Where’s Keith?” The silence Shiro’s greeted with drives the stake of fear deeper into his chest, make his voice sharp with terror. “Voltron, where is he?”_

_“Too far,” Allura breathes._

_“No,” Lance says grimly, and levels the Red Lion’s cannon with a steadier hand than he’s ever had in his life as he rips through the air. “I won’t be. I’m coming, buddy.”_

In the end, the Atlas crushes the bow of the Galra ship in Shiro’s haste to get to Keith, and it causes enough of a ruckus for Keith to shake off his disorientation, confused to find himself out of configuration. It’s just in time to warp out to rejoin the Lions and Voltron’s in the air before their enemy can even consider retreating, but it’s a near thing and Keith knows it.

“You scared me back there,” Shiro says, and his stomach sours at the echo of fear that still hangs over Shiro’s voice. Keith turns to face Shiro, letting Shiro’s hand rest at the junction between his neck and his shoulder. “What happened?”

He tunes out Lance’s tale as he takes in Shiro, strong and steady and _beautiful._

“I don’t know.” He thinks back, back to what _called_ for him, and finds an alarming lack of dread. “I just… felt something calling me.”

“Like what?” Shiro’s shoulders are tense with anxiety.

“I don’t know. I can barely remember.”

Shiro’s frown deepens. “Keith, I’m worried about you. It hasn’t been that long since – “

“I fell out of the sky?” he says wryly, but Shiro _flinches_ and Keith feels it all the way to his heartstrings.

“Keith, I almost _lost you_.” There’s an intensity Keith can’t quite place in Shiro’s voice as his grip tightens on Keith, the way his words taper out to thin and reedy as though saying it louder makes it too real.

Keith clasps a hand over Shiro’s against his own chest, takes a deep, deliberate breath.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers back. “But I’m here. I’m alive. I will never leave you.”

“We don’t know that, Keith. For either of us.”

“Try me,” Keith breathes, retort like a summer storm on the breeze.

Shiro’s eyes swoop down to the hand Keith’s still got clasped against his chest before coming back up to meet his eyes. His fear is so naked it’s almost invasive meeting his eyes.

“Shiro. Please. I’ll take it easy,” Keith murmurs. “We can talk about it later, I promise.”

Shiro nods slowly, apprehension softening around the edges. “Okay. As long as you let me know.”

He draws Shiro in for a chaste kiss just as Lance finishes his embellishment. The call of battle is still running through his blood, but Shiro deepens the kiss and suddenly every fiber of his being is singing for him instead. Dazed, they draw back, half-laughing at the lovesick smiles reflected on each other’s faces.

“I love you,” Keith says, bowled over by how deeply he means it. “I love you, Takashi.”

Allura appears behind Keith, an artful spray of feathers not unlike a boa circling her neck and her skin in bright vivid tones of orange and red. “Keith, as Leader of Voltron, you absolutely _must_ join me on the dance floor.”

“Allura, I don’t know how to dance,” he hisses, and to his dismay she only laughs gaily.

“Nonsense, Keith. If the Paladins of old could engage in such entertainment, we’ll make a dancer of you yet!” He yelps as she draws him forward into an empty pocket of space just a few feet from the bar.

“That’s right, Number Four! Bless his heart, Blaytz couldn’t keep a beat if his life depended on it, so he made his own music instead!” Coran pipes up.

For just a second, all seems right in the universe as Shiro watches Allura spin Keith. He starts nursing a cocktail vaguely reminiscent of fizzy pear and ginger that’s appeared at his elbow, courtesy of one Hunk who’s charmed the peacock-plumed bartender into sharing his skills.

“May I have this dance?”

Keith blinks at Shiro, upside down and so, so breathtakingly handsome in his sightline.

Allura’s smile is sly as she raises Keith back up, bowing to Shiro gracefully and proffering Keith’s hand.

Keith’s exhaustion seems to lift ever so slightly as Shiro’s lips ghost over the back of his knuckles, and when Shiro looks up his breath catches in his throat, Keith haloed by the light of glowing golden mosses hung from vines criss-crossing through the tree.

Pidge wolf-whistles behind Shiro, raising an elegantly curved goblet into the air and sloshing whatever her bright green drink is violently.

Keith’s expression stutters into an exasperated _why me_ , and Shiro has to fight back a groan as he looks back at Hunk behind the counter. He waves back frantically, making an ‘X’ with his forearms.

“I swear it’s virgin, Shiro!”

“Quiznak, I can risk my life for the universe but I can’t drink?” Pidge mutters under her breath, an absent hand on the space wolf’s head as he thumps his tail against the floor, and Shiro pointedly ignores her.

He circles one arm around Keith’s waist, pulling him flush even as Keith yelps, and turns positively pink, one hand against Shiro’s chest in a half-hearted attempt to push him off.

“What a gentleman you are,” Keith deadpans. “If Iverson could see you now.”

“I think he has,” Shiro says thoughtfully, as he steps from side to side, swaying Keith with the music. “He refuses to look at me during meetings with you involved now.”

Keith sputters, before giving up his mock protest to place his arms on Shiro’s shoulders, content and pliant as the music changes to a slow, amorous alien waltz.

A pleasant languidness settles across Shiro as he reconciles the boy he left with the man and equal he holds in his arms now, superimposing a scowling Keith speeding away in his car with the Keith looking back at him with intent affection.

Then Keith sways, less like dancing and more like a puppet with loose strings. His eyes darken.

“Keith?” The strange, warbling music in the background of the gala seems to fade away, leaving Shiro with a dim but growing sense of trepidation.

No answer greets him, just Keith’s eyes going sightless as he starts to stare at some point over Shiro’s shoulder.

_“Keith!”_ Pidge stops her easy conversation with Hunk and looks up sharply, just as Keith takes in a choked breath.

His eyes are haunted when he snaps back to Shiro’s face, shadowed with a longing Shiro can only begin to guess at.

Then Keith blinks and the yearning lifts like a cloud evaporating under blazing sun, looking confusedly back at him. “Shiro? Is something wrong?”

The dread in his chest ratchets tighter.

“Nothing. You seemed out of it for a second.”

Keith smiles, ruefully beatific. “Might be a little tired.”

“Come to bed with me later?” It comes out pitched lower than Shiro intends, but it’s worth it for the flush that spreads from Keith’s ears.

“Yeah,” he breathes, tipping his head forward just enough to rest against Shiro’s shoulder. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

\---

Waking up without Keith next to him is a nightmare come to life for all of five seconds as he looks frantically through their guest room.

But then he finds Keith curled up on the gnarled branch of the windowsill, staring out across the dark wooded valley bathed in fog below them. Kosmo is seemingly asleep by the door, but the glow of one slitted eye tells Shiro the wolf is alert despite all appearances. Three moons hang low in the sky, reflecting pale gold twilight into their room.

The panic starts to subside, and for one precious moment, he can appreciate this sight of Keith unguarded and present and _real_ that had nearly slipped through his fingers forever.

Too many nights spent by Keith’s bedside after the Lions fell to Earth, praying to all deities he knows and some he’s been told of, have turned the already dark corners of his mind twisted and treacherous. Too many nights he’s woken up drenched in terror-sweat and with Keith death-pale next to him burned into his irises in a rickety folding chair.

But he hadn’t been prepared for this Keith, this space-whale emboldened man who’d shaken Shiro out of a terror that gripped him so deep that he’d risked a connection through their mindscapes and sheer force of will.

_Sendak is standing over him with Keith, unmoving and neck twisted to the sky on the ground between them, but suddenly Sendak is gone and it’s the Black Lion smoking and partially crushed in the arena as he stands over Keith with a blood-spattered Galra-purple arm_.

This Keith, who dragged him into consciousness with a scream of conviction so loud and soul-shaking the Lions came to life in the hangar, restlessly searching for the threat to the Black Paladin as their own Paladins burst through the door.

_“No. No, no, Keith, no, I never wanted to hurt you, what have I done, what_ have I done – _“_

_Arms, lithe and strong, wrapping around his chest and a warm body pressed flush and_ alive _to his back. “Shiro. I found you.”_

_“No, you can’t be alive, I did this – “_

_“Shiro. Listen to me.” He’s spun around, Keith grasping both of his arms at the bicep and heedless of the angry black crackle of the Galra arm. “Please. We have to leave. This isn’t real.”_

_“You’re not real?” Shiro’s voice cracks, so quiet he can barely hear himself. The bloodthirst of the arena spectators is still ringing loud and clear in his ears, and he doesn’t dare turn around, doesn’t dare look at the Keith dead behind him._

_Keith’s smile is longing and sad as he holds out his hand to Shiro. “This isn’t, but I am. Do you trust me?”_

_His hand is already rising to clasp Keith’s._

_“Always.”_

_The world turns black and the sound of the arena cuts short, like the vacuum of space has swallowed it whole, before abruptly a scream shocks into his ears and Shiro’s gasping for air with his heart racing and_ Keith, where is Keith –

_Keith’s eyes are bright in the darkness, Galra-catlike, his body leaned precariously over the safety railing of the bed and a gentle hand trembling against Shiro’s face. Beads of sweat are gathering just below the line of the stark-white bandage still wrapped around his head._

_He blinks, relief softening his features, and his eyes are purple and human again. His mouth curls up at the corner into a grin as he says, “Told you I was real.”_

_But then he’s falling, falling forward with limbs boneless as he loses his weak grip on the rail._

_Shiro dives out of his chair, barely hears it skitter across the floor to hit a cabinet with a bang as he gathers Keith into his arms, cradling him in an awkward sprawl as Keith collapses limply against him._

_“Hey, Keith? Keith.” A soft groan, muffled against Shiro’s chest. He pats Keith’s cheek gently, mindful of the head injury and the wireless monitoring device glowing faintly under his shirt against his chest. “Keith. Come on, babe.”_

_Keith’s eyes open just a crack, forehead still creased in pain. “’Babe?’”_

_Shiro stills, feels his cheeks go hot as Keith’s eyes slowly open wider, surprise dawning across his face._

_“Oh,” is the only graceful response Shiro can manage. There’s a distant scuffle in the hallway that he can hear, and it’s a shameful tribute to his instincts that he can’t find himself caring more about it with Keith in his arms._

_“Shiro?” Keith’s voice is hesitant, quiet and balanced on a precipice. “Why did you call me that?”_

_“Because,” Shiro starts, throat dry. “I should have told you something a long time ago. Something you were brave enough to tell me.”_

_Then sparks fly as the door is literally ripped open, automatic technology be damned. Lance’s broadsword is blindingly bright in the darkness as the Paladins step through, and Hunk’s voice cuts through the darkness, low and threatening._

_“We are the Paladins of Voltron! Reveal yourselves – oh.”_

_Pidge’s hair is a crow’s nest, her eyes wide as she takes in the scene before a slow smile spreads across her face._

_“’Reveal yourselves’?” Lance stage-whispers as he hobbles awkwardly on his crutch under one arm, bayard lowered in his other, but Allura is already skidding to the floor next to Keith, hand will ‘o wisp blue as she brings a hand to Keith’s forehead._

_“I’m okay,” Keith croaks out, throat dry._

_Allura shakes her head at him._

_“Your quintessence is still fluctuating dangerously. What happened?”_

_“I – Shiro was in_ trouble _– I had to find him – “ Keith looks at her then back to Shiro, worn and so, so overwhelmed the words die in his throat and he closes his eyes tight against unbidden tears._

_“I was telling Keith,” Shiro broke through suddenly, eyes locked with Keith’s. “That I love him.”_

_The room explodes as Shiro stands up slowly with Keith lying in his arms, whose eyes fly open to stare up at him with a rare delighted wonder._

_“Shiro,” Keith breathes, and maybe it’s not quite perfect that the first time they kiss the entirety of Voltron is privy to it, catcalls and gagging sounds and delighted laughter alike._

_Or maybe that’s why it is._

“Hey, babe,” Shiro says as he draws up behind Keith, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Keith turns to look at him slowly, almost lethargic, and Shiro’s almost knocked sideways with how the moonlight falls across his planes of his skin. Keith had always been a wild beauty, but there’s something refined about him now, all liquid grace and felid ease that hadn’t existed before, and every day Shiro finds himself falling head over heels again.

“I think there’s something wrong with me,” Keith says, trepidation all in his voice and the way he wraps his arms around one knee to curl tighter. The sight is enough to make Shiro’s heart ache.

“Hey,” Shiro says gently, drawing Keith’s focus back to him. “I just want you to remember we’re here, Keith. I’m here.” He thumbs at Keith’s cheek, and Keith turns his head to press his lips against Shiro’s knuckles. “You still get to have bad days, but I’m going to be right there with you, if you’ll have me.”

Keith’s answering smile is a small but hard-won victory.

“Talk to me,” Shiro coaxes, sitting down next to Keith’s legs to face him. “What’s bothering you?”

Shiro holds out his hand, and wordlessly, Keith takes it, running calloused fingers across Shiro’s knuckles and the ticklish spaces between his fingers over and over as he gathers his thoughts.

“There’s something out there,” Keith finally says, low and wistful as he keeps looking at their hands. “It feels so familiar, Shiro.”

“Like what?” Shiro’s shoulders are tense with anxiety.

“I don’t know. But it almost feels like – like something I once knew. But that’s impossible.”

He turns back to Shiro, and suddenly his eyes are sharp and lucid with a searing conviction Shiro knows too well. This is what met him when Shiro offered him a chance to fly. This is what met him when he was dredged up from a half-existence amidst the star-world of an ancient beast.

“I think I need to go.”

Shiro’s heart stills in his chest even as Keith locks eyes with him, steady and calm.

“Will you come with me?”

His logical mind says _wake the team, let’s sleep on it, let’s talk about this tomorrow. Come back to bed and stay with me._

But the part of him that knows Keith soars.

“Always.”


End file.
